In the field of communications, competitive billing or tariffing for use of network resources and services is a key part of attracting and maintaining a strong customer base. With the current migration towards data and multimedia services, billing or tariffing will increasingly become a major factor in encouraging or suppressing the take up and provision of these new technologies and the capabilities they offer. This is a particular problem with the introduction of third generation (3G) wireless networks which are capable of providing the user with a wide variety of services in addition to the conventional voice and text traffic. In addition, in the data world, there are now new opportunities for innovative tariff models based not only on duration or volume of data but also on the value delivered by the data. This value can be independent of volume or duration. For example, a video delivered at voice call bandwidth rates would be far too expensive to be commercially viable and yet a typical text message via SMS (short message service) containing less than a couple of hundred bytes of data, can be charged at a disproportionately high rate. In addition to what is being charged, the data world will also add in new stakeholders in the value chain such as content providers and new business models with the network operator being wholesaler, retailer, credit broker or channel partner as required.
In the Wireless space, the existing billing activities tend to be focused on charging for data transmission at the granularity of the PDP (Packet Data Protocol) context (i.e. the connection of the device to the network). IP services are run over this connection. Since IP (Internet Protocol) is designed to multiplex service delivery, the same PDP context may be used to use multiple services possibly concurrently. The existing billing work in OSA (Open Services Architecture) under CAMEL (Customized Applications of Mobile-Network Enhanced Logic) and IMS (Internet Protocol Multimedia Subsystem) does not allow the billing system to differentiate between different services on the same PDP context.
In the IP space, traffic analysis is becoming real, but typical deployments are not centred on data or content based billing since there is not an appropriate charging relationship with the end user. As such, the service provider typically enters into a specific relationship with the end user typically via credit cards. This is limited by the consumers' willingness to provide credit card details, lack of anonymity and the effective disenfranchisement of consumers unable to get credit cards (e.g. those under 18 years of age). Industry initiatives for pay up front and trusted third party payment are beginning to emerge but do not correlate with the data traffic due to a focus on wireline where access charges are either via fixed monthly payment or are quite low.
In the wireless space, access charges are high (e.g. GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) where each additional Megabyte will cost around $5 under current pricing schemes in comparison to 10-20 cents via local call rate ISP (Internet Service Provider) dial-up access). Dial-up is also quicker and more reliable. Wireless access is also error prone and errors result in retransmissions which are also charged—thus the user pays twice (access costs and purchase price) and pays extra when the service is poor.
Correlation in real-time is complex since the billing system cannot have knowledge of all the elements that may be involved in delivery of a particular service, or when complete data on a service interaction will be complete. However, for real-time credit management, the cost of service provision must be applied in a short timescale (minutes) and preferably on-line so that service can be immediately discontinued on expiration of credit.
With the increased value that m-commerce brings, real-time operation is critical for credit risk management.
In addition to the business model changes that are being introduced, there is a need for the infrastructure to support multiple devices, family accounts, mixed business and personal accounts with different billing models for each mix of fixed and wireless access and voice/data, and handle roaming between different networks. Consequently an operator's ability to offer a coherent payment services architecture that enables new services to be quickly launched and rating schemes to be easily modified depending on market conditions, vouchers, discounts, mark-ups, promotions, and so forth will be crucial to that operator's competitive position and future profitability.
Traditionally, postpaid billing has been employed for use of communications resources and services, i.e. the user receives a monthly or quarterly bill for the services that have been delivered in that period. The success enjoyed by the recently introduced prepaid billing, in which the user purchases credit for future use, is in part due to its ability to handle charging in real time without the need for a downstream billing infrastructure. Migration to 3G networks will form an overlay of new services and capabilities that are expected to approach, if not exceed, the capabilities of traditional billing methods. This problem is further exacerbated in networks having a mixture of prepaid and postpaid customers and which thus have an added complexity in the billing procedure